The late disability rights activist Max Starkloff founded Paraquad in 1970. Since then it has grown into the region’s leading advocate and resource for people with disabilities of all kinds—helping them find jobs and housing, enabling them move forward after life-altering injuries, and giving them a community where they feel seen and heard. Starkloff’s achievement seems even more impressive when you consider that he survived a serious car crash in 1959 that left him a quadriplegic at age 21.
Flash forward to Thursday night. Nearly 100 people, many in wheelchairs, crowded into a large room at Paraquad’s Stephen A. Orthwein Center, located near Forest Park, to celebrate the organization’s 55th birthday and to recount how it made their lives better, often in the wake of traumatic injuries.
Get a fresh take on the day’s top news
Subscribe to the St. Louis Daily newsletter for a smart, succinct guide to local news from award-winning journalists Sarah Fenske and Ryan Krull.
Mark Siddens, 59, suffered a spinal stroke more than three years ago that left him paralyzed from the chest down. Five days a week, Siddens comes to the center for physical therapy and to work out in a gymnasium full of specialized equipment, including a mechanical exoskeleton to help paralyzed people walk on their own.
Siddens, who retired as superintendent of the Richmond Heights Public Works department, nodded to a corner of the building where, during his first visits, he was placed on a mat and would often topple over. “I could not sit on that mat,” he said. “Now I walk with a cane.”
Siddens’ advice for anyone trying to recover from a severe injury: “You can’t give up, no matter how hard it seems. And if you don’t feel like you’re progressing—don’t give up.”
One of Thursday night’s featured speakers was Latosha Fowlkes, Paraquad’s new CEO.
“We are here because so many people chose to believe in a world where people with disabilities have the same choices, opportunities, and freedom as everyone else,” Fowlkes said.
Fowlkes invited the audience to reflect not only on the past 55 years, but to imagine the world 55 years from now. “What will our community look like if accessibility, inclusion and equity were the norm and not the exception?” she said.
Some of the loudest applause of the night was for Ginny Orthwein, the widow of Stephen Orthwein, a member of the Busch brewing clan and a legendary polo player who, in 2016, suffered a fall off a horse that left him paralyzed from the chest down.
“He just happened to land perfectly wrong,” Ginny Orthwein said.
Ginny Orthwein led the capital campaign that raised $2.5 million to buy the highly specialized equipment, including robotic arms, that helps people with all kinds of physical disabilities work out in the weight room. Paraquad credits the campaign for transforming its Health and Wellness Center from a “solid local resource” to a “state-of-the-art regional destination.”
Through Paraquad, she said from the podium, “I have met and seen some of the greatest people work through adversities. When they are given any kind of assistance, their personal determination and how they want to continue with their lives is amazing.”
Orthwein lauded Paraquad for being on the forefront of disabilities advocacy and for helping people “to live in their own homes and to be part of society.”
Towards the end of evening, as people were filtering out of the center and heading home, Orthwein reflected on what Paraquad meant to her husband, who passed away in early 2018.
“This is a place where anybody can improve,” she said. “You don’t come through the door without a smile and without being an advocate for yourself. The atmosphere is so overwhelming and happy.”
